On Bailing Water:
Anonymous said...
Freddy,
As one who has worshipped now and then at the church served by the first VP, I'm astonished that you'd call him a known CGM advocate.
Your July 26 post on your own blog identifies Ev-Luth congregations. The things you say you're tired of enduring are not found at his church.
August 5, 2009 9:10 AM
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"'Church growth.' I've seen people cringe when they hear those words. I think I know why. They react negatively because they feel 'church growth' implies an obsessive fixation with numbers and statistics."
Pastor James Huebner, Spiritual Renewal Consultant, Notebook, School of Outreach IV, Seventeen Ways to Keep Your Church from Growing, p. 178.
"We can't do a thing to make his Word more effective. But surely we can detract from its effectiveness by careless errors and poor judgment. It just makes good sense to utilize all of our God-given talents, to scour the field for appropriate ideas, concepts, and material (sic), to implement programs, methods, and techniques so that we do not detract from the effectiveness of the gospel we proclaim. Church growth articles, books, seminars, and conferences can offer such ideas and programs."
Pastor James Huebner, Spiritual Renewal Consultant, Notebook, School of Outreach IV, Seventeen Ways to Keep Your Church from Growing, p 178.
***
GJ - Huebner was trained at Fuller Seminary to be a Church Growth consultant, as he admitted to me. Paul Calvin Kelm ran this so-called Spiritual Renewal Program after getting himself into constant trouble running Evangelism. Kelm was also an early editor of TELL, which the synod began to promote the Church Growth Movement (starting in 1977 with Ron Roth). Kelm and Larry Olson (DMin, Fuller Seminary) ran around WELS retooling the WELS pastors in a massive CG promotion. The same three men were used to brainwash new Sausage Factory grads one year after being ordained (in case the Enthusiasm wore off).
Apart from the activities of the CG trio, there are the actual quotations above, which have not been retracted and repudiated by Huebner.
The CGM trio above has served as the launching pad for Ski, Doebler, Hunter, Stolzenburg, and many others. The rotten apple CORE does not fall far from the tree.
